Preface: “The road of good intentions is paved with”—what’s the rest of that saying? My intent was to have this posted for the 20th Annual World AIDS Day commemoration and my 2nd Annual on December 1. I started writing it last week. Then the universe intervened and I’ve been in bed the past two days feeling like shit with a fever vacillating between 99 – 102. It’s currently at the lower side. But it messed up my plans for a timely post. So here it is, a gay late and a dollar short, typed in bed on my laptop between the sweats and chills and naps.
Since I wrote my first post last year ( http://randomthawghts.blogspot.com/2007/11/world-aids-day-december-1_28.html ) I now can call this my “Second Annual World AIDS Day Post”. With some frequency, I will have someone come to me a work with a proposal for a new educational program with the proposed title, “First Annual…” I’m continually trying to explain to physicians that you can’t have a “First Annual “ anything. For something to be an annual event, it has to have occurred AT LEAST once, the year previously. But I digress.
I’m hopeful that the new administration will see the HIV/AIDS epidemic as the public health issue that it is and NOT a moral issue. Yes, W has acknowledged the world wide catastrophe that AIDS is. Yet on the national front, HIV prevention and education funding still lapses.
Needle exchange IS a proven HIV prevention method.
Safe sex and condom use is essential for prevention of disease transmission.
Making condoms available in prisons prevents disease transmission.
News flash: telling prisoners not to have sex is just as effective is was for Sarah Palin’s daughter.
A pointy hat, satin robe, and ruby Prada shoes are not qualifications for making pronouncements about public health and convincing people to not practice safe sex out of some archaic and arcane obligation. The question these people really need to ask, seriously, “WWJD”? Then they need to step back and let people who know public health do their jobs without religion.
The thing that is still increasingly disturbing (and increasing in incidence) is the rate raising rate of new HIV infections among young gay men. Earlier this Fall, I attended an luncheon lecture as part of GLTB week surrounding National Coming Out Day. At the end, the presenters took questions. I raised the question, “What has our generation done wrong, in that the safe sex message did not transfer down to the new generation of gay men?” While the advent of the drug cocktails have been some of the best things to happen, I think we became complacent with the original safe sex message. It lost some of its importance. The message somehow became, “It doesn’t matter if you get infected, you just go on the cocktail.” The thing I just can’t wrap my brain around is how some view becoming HIV positive as a ‘right of passage’ in the progression of fully becoming a gay man. My generation really has fucked up, when we’ve allowed this to become one of the prevailing messages that we bequeathed to the current generations. We have to leave a better legacy.
©wtf/rle
Post Script
Any portion of this that doesn’t make sense, I blame on the fever and apologize.
Any portion of this that you may find offensive, I attribute to my abrasive nature and make no apologies.
Showing posts with label HIV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HIV. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
The Greener Grass
It’s long been on my mind, but something I’ve been reticent to verbalize or ‘writerize’ about my diagnosis. My guess is that other people with chronic illnesses/conditions/diagnoses think similarly in regards to their own situations, when thinking about or talking to “the great magician in the sky”, as George Carlin used to say in reference to a god.
I wonder what it would be like if I could ‘exchange’ my CVID for something else. When I play this fantasy game in my own mind, I’m usually trading it for HIV—hence my reticence to talk/write about. Let me state for the record, I’m NOT a ‘bug chaser’.* (see first footnote.) Nor, do I advocate the practice.
My thoughts tend more to the philosophic ideals. How would my life be different? Do diabetics dream about trading their insulin injections for something they deem less intrusive? (This is all conjecture, and since it’s my health fantasy, I get to romanticize it the way I want.) In this scenario, my overall health is actually better, because my doc(s) treat a lot more cases of HIV than CVID, and know how to manage it (the disease) better. This is confirmed by the knowledge that my friends with HIV have a better overall health than I do. The other thing, (and this is the one that makes me envious) is that I’d have an already built in community of people like me, with more commonalities that the disease itself. There are plenty of services, support and social groups for my HIV friends. This ties in to a recurrent theme of my life of feeling like I’m always on the outside, looking in. It’s something that is a very common theme among gay people. From our earliest memories, we (or I) always knew that I was somehow different from my brothers, from my classmates, from everybody. And, even though I couldn’t articulate what that difference was for a long time, I somehow knew it had to be kept “secret”. It falls in line with the sense of the “Imposter Syndrome”. Or to analogize this to another group, my friends who are in AA, have that built in community of people like them. Again, I have no intention of abusing ETOH to get a membership card. Given my preponderance of constant anti-biotic use, I would not be able to over drink with any consistency, anyway . But then, if I had that particular disease, adherence to abstinence while on antibiotics would most likely not be in the forefront of my mind.
An additional aspect that frustrates me is that I used to do my share of volunteer work for HIV/AIDS education and prevention & services to people with HIV. That all stopped when I had my first shoulder surgery, which I believe was the catapulting event that was the beginning of my overall health decline. That was followed by the chronic pain problems (which is a completely different chapter). Aside from lacking the energy to be able to commit long term, I’ve re-focused my energies to learning about and working on causes related to CVID. While important and a necessary move on my part, what I do in these regards, impacts fewer people than did my HIV work. It also somehow feels ‘less pure’, as now my motives are now more self-serving.
When I’m able to joke about it, which is most of the time, I say this is just another aspect of how dyslexia has permeated every aspect of my life.** (see second footnote.) Even my body/blood got the letters mixed up. Gay men are supposed to get HIV, not CVID. But then, I've never been one to follow convention. The ironic part being all the years of worrying about HIV, and doing my semi-annual HIV tests (out of habit, not necessarily activity), it didn't occur to me or my various healthcare providers to look at other possibilities, until two and a half years ago. Well, that's partly untrue. For nearly 13 years, I kept saying, "There's something you're not figuring out. Something's not right. I shouldn't be getting sick all the time." And, after all those years, it was the PA who finally diagnosed me correctly.
I close with no answers to my contemplative fantasy disease exchange, but more questions, which is frustrating. As the Baker’s son, sings in the finale of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, “No more questions—please. No more tests... No more curses you can’t undo…No more questions, please. Close the door.—Just No More.” Just no more—those three words speak volumes. I believe that most of life’s ponderings can be summed up by and/or found in one of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals/songs. I would say Into the Woods is my favorite Sondheim, but I can’t. That’s like parents choosing a favorite child (although mine did, --shocker! It wasn’t me). All of his shows provide a new/usually skewed—in a good way—outlook. (I wish they would do a revival of this show on Broadway. I’ve only seen this one by smaller non-equity companies in smaller venues. I’d really like to see it on the Big White Way. Although I didn’t get there this year to see Sunday in the Park With George (another Great Sondheim show). But I digress.
*term in the gay community for an HIV negative man who seeks out and has unprotected sex with an HIV positive man with the sole intent of contracting the virus. Some view it as a ‘right of passage’ to becoming a MOTT (Member Of The Tribe). There’s an alarming amount of data indicating the widespread practice of this, especially among younger gay men who never have had to witness the decline and gruesome deaths of their friends who died from AIDS complications, before the advent of Protease Inhibitors and all the subsequent HIV meds.
**the other aspect being that I did not come out of the closet until I quit being a florist. I got that backwards too.
©wtf/rle
I wonder what it would be like if I could ‘exchange’ my CVID for something else. When I play this fantasy game in my own mind, I’m usually trading it for HIV—hence my reticence to talk/write about. Let me state for the record, I’m NOT a ‘bug chaser’.* (see first footnote.) Nor, do I advocate the practice.
My thoughts tend more to the philosophic ideals. How would my life be different? Do diabetics dream about trading their insulin injections for something they deem less intrusive? (This is all conjecture, and since it’s my health fantasy, I get to romanticize it the way I want.) In this scenario, my overall health is actually better, because my doc(s) treat a lot more cases of HIV than CVID, and know how to manage it (the disease) better. This is confirmed by the knowledge that my friends with HIV have a better overall health than I do. The other thing, (and this is the one that makes me envious) is that I’d have an already built in community of people like me, with more commonalities that the disease itself. There are plenty of services, support and social groups for my HIV friends. This ties in to a recurrent theme of my life of feeling like I’m always on the outside, looking in. It’s something that is a very common theme among gay people. From our earliest memories, we (or I) always knew that I was somehow different from my brothers, from my classmates, from everybody. And, even though I couldn’t articulate what that difference was for a long time, I somehow knew it had to be kept “secret”. It falls in line with the sense of the “Imposter Syndrome”. Or to analogize this to another group, my friends who are in AA, have that built in community of people like them. Again, I have no intention of abusing ETOH to get a membership card. Given my preponderance of constant anti-biotic use, I would not be able to over drink with any consistency, anyway . But then, if I had that particular disease, adherence to abstinence while on antibiotics would most likely not be in the forefront of my mind.
An additional aspect that frustrates me is that I used to do my share of volunteer work for HIV/AIDS education and prevention & services to people with HIV. That all stopped when I had my first shoulder surgery, which I believe was the catapulting event that was the beginning of my overall health decline. That was followed by the chronic pain problems (which is a completely different chapter). Aside from lacking the energy to be able to commit long term, I’ve re-focused my energies to learning about and working on causes related to CVID. While important and a necessary move on my part, what I do in these regards, impacts fewer people than did my HIV work. It also somehow feels ‘less pure’, as now my motives are now more self-serving.
When I’m able to joke about it, which is most of the time, I say this is just another aspect of how dyslexia has permeated every aspect of my life.** (see second footnote.) Even my body/blood got the letters mixed up. Gay men are supposed to get HIV, not CVID. But then, I've never been one to follow convention. The ironic part being all the years of worrying about HIV, and doing my semi-annual HIV tests (out of habit, not necessarily activity), it didn't occur to me or my various healthcare providers to look at other possibilities, until two and a half years ago. Well, that's partly untrue. For nearly 13 years, I kept saying, "There's something you're not figuring out. Something's not right. I shouldn't be getting sick all the time." And, after all those years, it was the PA who finally diagnosed me correctly.
I close with no answers to my contemplative fantasy disease exchange, but more questions, which is frustrating. As the Baker’s son, sings in the finale of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, “No more questions—please. No more tests... No more curses you can’t undo…No more questions, please. Close the door.—Just No More.” Just no more—those three words speak volumes. I believe that most of life’s ponderings can be summed up by and/or found in one of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals/songs. I would say Into the Woods is my favorite Sondheim, but I can’t. That’s like parents choosing a favorite child (although mine did, --shocker! It wasn’t me). All of his shows provide a new/usually skewed—in a good way—outlook. (I wish they would do a revival of this show on Broadway. I’ve only seen this one by smaller non-equity companies in smaller venues. I’d really like to see it on the Big White Way. Although I didn’t get there this year to see Sunday in the Park With George (another Great Sondheim show). But I digress.
*term in the gay community for an HIV negative man who seeks out and has unprotected sex with an HIV positive man with the sole intent of contracting the virus. Some view it as a ‘right of passage’ to becoming a MOTT (Member Of The Tribe). There’s an alarming amount of data indicating the widespread practice of this, especially among younger gay men who never have had to witness the decline and gruesome deaths of their friends who died from AIDS complications, before the advent of Protease Inhibitors and all the subsequent HIV meds.
**the other aspect being that I did not come out of the closet until I quit being a florist. I got that backwards too.
©wtf/rle
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